The present invention is directed to improvements in smoking articles, particularly smoking articles which employ tobacco as a source of smoke and flavor, but which do not burn tobacco.
Cigarettes, cigars and pipes are popular smoking articles which use tobacco in various forms. Many products have been proposed as improvements upon, or alternatives to, the various popular smoking articles. For example, numerous references have proposed articles which generate a flavored vapor and/or a visible aerosol. Most of such articles have employed a combustible fuel source to provide an aerosol and/or to heat an aerosol forming material. See, for example, the background art cited in U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,082 to Banerjee et al.
A number of smoking articles have been designed and produced having a short carbonaceous fuel element and a physically separate aerosol generating means. Smoking articles of this type, as well as materials, methods and/or apparatus useful therein and/or for preparing them, are described in the following U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,151 to Shelar; U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,082 to Banerjee et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,168 to Resce; U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,318 to Clearman et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,644 to Haarer et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,365 to Sensabaugh et al., and the patents cited in U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,965, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Other approaches have been taken to provide alternate smoking articles without burning tobacco, such as the use of electrical heaters to heat tobacco or tobacco flavor-containing materials to form an aerosol. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,104,266 to McCormick, U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,217 to Gerth et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,144,962 to Counts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,498 to Deevi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,586 to Morgan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,723 to Counts et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,636 to Baggett et al., and PCT publication No. WO 96/32854 of Baggett et al., published Oct. 24, 1966.
Another approach has been to use chemical reactions other than the burning of fuel to provide the heat for vaporization of tobacco components or tobacco flavor materials. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,258,015 to Ellis et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,483 to Ridings et al. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,798 to Banerjee et al., an electrochemical approach to flavor generation was reported.
Other reported systems have included German patent No. 27 04 218 to Kovacs, which uses a flame or other heater to heat scented gas, which can then be inhaled to simulate smoking, and PCT publication No. WO097/48294 of Japan Tobacco, published Dec. 24, 1997. That PCT publication discloses a combination lighter/heat exchanger for heating air to elute flavorants, including tobacco ingredients such as tobacco extract ingredients or condensed tobacco smoke, from a substrate, which may be a solid raw material, or may be an air-permeable substrate, such as activated carbon fiber, cellulose fiber, etc. The eluted flavorants are drawn into the mouth of the smoker.